Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Original thread open for comments is located here: http://forum.canadianwoodworking.com...Pics-on-page-7.


Hi All. Welcome to my "Project House".


This is going to be my daily (sometimes semi-daily….sometimes weekly) blog of my “House front Facelift”. This build involves me taking a 1970’s Viceroy cottage and making it much more modern. When I bought this cottage it was an un-insulated shell….no driveway, no phone, two electrical circuits, bad plumbing and paneling from shag to popcorn.

Over the last few years I have done the most of the electrical/mechanical/inside cosmetic work, some of which you've likely seen in the magazines.....but short of replacing the three (yes three) sliding glass doors on the front with new a new door and window, adding a driveway and some plants, the outside of the house is pretty much as it was…..time to change that.

This blog will eventually cover just about every facet of what a homeowner can do to the exterior of your home….from the standard stuff like deck building and landscaping to roof framing, post and beam, stonework and exterior coverings…plus a bunch more.

Several components of the build are being put into articles for a few different magazines, so some pictures/processes may be missing….but hopefully you’ll get the gist by what I post here.

Comments and questions are welcome .

OK, lets get started……..

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill’s reno blog….My house front facelift

Day 1.

Here’s what I’m starting with…..nice eh?








So after ripping off/dismantling the front deck, I killed the 100000000 carpenter ants that had taken up residence in the rim joist, removed the rotten wood, and one at a time, replaced the floor joists that had rotted. The new 2X10’s had to be notched to match the dimension of the old ones.








And twisted into place



Finally, a new rim joist was added




And that is enough for one day. 9 floor joists, 12’ of pressure treated sill plate, 12’ of new rim joist……time flies when you are having fun.

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill’s reno blog….My house front facelift

Day 2.

Day 2 is all about digging….and digging…..and more digging. (too bad the temps were in the 30’s) I had to dig the footings for the new deck. The holes were 36” in diameter and 4’6” deep…..all dug by hand. (Hint: A really short shovel helps when you are chest deep in the hole)+

A test fit of the big foot



The 10” sonotube was added and plumbed



The building inspector was called to inspect the hole, check for water, check for proper footing size and depth, and then I had to shovel all of the dirt that I had just dug OUT of the hole back IN to the hole…..good times.



The late afternoon was spent mixing 20 bags of concrete and filling the two forms. Sorry no pics, but just picture a dirty/sweaty Ryan with a skid of bags, a hose, a rental mixer and a shovel.

That’s MORE than enough for one day…..next up: Framing.

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill’s reno blog….My house front facelift

I actually bought it for the view..... I built the shop a few years later

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Day 3:

The first step was to uncover the load of lumber that the Lowe’s truck dropped off….as I said in an earlier post, the nicest PT lumber I have ever encountered.



The main beam was set onto the 10” sonotube, and screwed in place. No bolt yet…that’s coming up.


The 10X10 upper portion was framed (2X10’s, 12” centers) and blocking installed midway along the length


But it still needs some stairs….



The first stair will eventually turn into a second freefloating deck, so it was built the same as the deck itself.









And the 6X6 cedar uprights got notched to saddle the beam





And the posts put in place,


Tomorrow is decking and the fascia gets some surgery

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover, Day 3 posted 07/28

Day 4

The first thing was to lay the decking so I could have a place to work. Because I’m only building this deck *once*, I decided to go the PVC route for decking. I googled the heck out of the internet, hitting the pro contactor forums, the deck forums, the building associations, etc. etc. etc., all in the hunt for the ultimate deck material and there was one very clear winner. This decking is called Azek, and is really excellent stuff. It works almost identically to wood, takes router details, rips cleanly, and best of all: It will never, ever rot. There is no wood fiber like there is in composites, and the stuff is super hard. You can not get it to mark, even trying to deliberately gouge it with a key. I have some scraps if anyone wants to try for themselves.

I attached the cover boards


Then laid the decking and trimmed it about 3/16” from the edge with my circ. Saw



and routed it flush using an upcut spiral flush trimming bit. If you don’t have one of these, you need one……zero catching of the cutting edges, and because it shears, it cuts really smooth.


Last step of the day: Cut back the Fascia and install the 6X6 cross members that sit on top of the posts.


Next step: Post and beam

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover, Day 4 up

Lurkin' & readin' waitin' for completion before comments.... (In the words of Charles Dickens... "more please"...)

If you are waiting until completion to comment, it's going to be late September......but I can show you the the next step

So the first thing I needed to do was cut a 6X6X9’ wall tie, cut a half-lap, match it up with a 40” vertical and peg it together, and get it up in the air…..by myself…..lots of fun:


Then cut the main rafter beams, brought them up one at a time and pegged them in place.


And it starts to look like this:


Now…what do you do when you need a couple of 3”X11”X 4’ chunks of red cedar, but no mill has any? Joint, plane, and laminate four 2X6’s of course



Get out the pencil and the Lee Valley drawing bow, mark out some tennons and hit the bandsaw



A little hand work, a couple more pegs, and voila: Knee Braces


It’ll likely be a few days until my next entry…lots of stuff on the go. I should be cutting into the roof next week (waiting for steel), so in the mean time I’m starting another project on the front. (Hint: There is something missing in this pic that was present in all the earlier shots)


Thanks for looking.

R

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover, Day 4 up

Is it the bushes missing? What do I win?

Nice project, can't wait to see the end result.

You win a cookie

Before:


The garden, retaining wall, etc. were removed.....


And relocated beside the drive:


Sadly, that was it for day 6.....But I'm uploading day 7 now .

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover, Day 6 added. New pics added to day

OK...Day 7

The first step was to dig down to the house footings in three places to the right of the new upper deck, then sit some notched 6X6 PT down on them before backfilling with gravel



And then set and level some deck blocks and a beam



So its pretty obvious that I'm doing a second deck by now
This is a free floating deck, about 12X16' set off the first step of the main deck. There's more to this, but you'll have to wait unil later to find out the "twist"

With the double ledger set on the footing posts and the 2 ply beam set on the blocks, it ws time to notch some 6X6 WRC to straddle the beam and sit into the blocks. Who says a band saw isn't a "deck building tool"?



The posts were cut to length, set in place, checked for plumb and bolted in place with some 1/2" X 7" galvanized stove bolts.



Then framing. 2X10 PT...some blocking....nothing real exciting.



And thats it for another day. I'm going to switch gears and go back to the main deck for a bit in day 8.




Thanks for looking

Ryan

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover, Day 7 added. New pics added to day

OK...Day 8.

I started off the day by removing the existing steel roofing over the entry area....



Then I needed to remove the tails of the existing rafters, cutting them flush with the top of the wall.



A temporary king post was nailed in place, and the ridge beam re-installed and plumbed. The gable rafters were cut, and then after laying some 2X10 strapping in the valleys to support the 36" W flashing I'll be using, the back rafters were cut and installed.



And tarped for the day


My last job was to make up the 2X lap cedar I'm using for the roof decking. It was made up of cedar 2X6's with a 3/4" X 3/8" rabbet down each side....There are 30 boards, 12' long, two rabbets each. If you do the math that adds up to 720 feet of rabbet! (and although Mr Schwartz may find rabbeting shelves useless on an a jointer, I'm certainly glad mine has one Running 12' long lumber and cutting rabbets that large in a single pass is no easy task for anything less than a power-fed shaper, but the Jointer did it no problem. )




Next up: Finish framing the gable, get those lap boards up, ice and water shield and getting the steel installed.
Back to it!

Ryan

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover, Day 8

Day 9......

With the trusses framed in, I framed the gable wall and then it was time for sheathing. The front (visible) portion of the roof got the 1.5" shopmade shiplap cedar, while the portion behind the gable wall was done with plywood and strapping.




Because heavy rain was expected, I applied ice and water shield to the entire roof so I could avoid having a swimming pool in the living room, and so I could have a dry area for the next step: reframing the area around the door. I removed the existing sheathing from the door area and all the way to the side of the house under the window and reframed. I added king studs under the horizontal cedar beams which run down to the sill plate, and then installed squash blocks between the floor joists to transfer the load down onto the block wall. Overkill? Maybe....but for the 10 bucks in lumber it cost, it's good insurance. Lastly, I installed the W flashing in preparation for the steel. The tarp was added "just in case" as the back portion of the original steel roof was not yet reinstalled.




^^^Not me That's Trevor Loney, a friend of mine. That guy knows how to swing a hammer.


And snapped a chalk line and trimmed off the ends of the gable boards.


And that was pretty much it for the day.

Ryan

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover, *Updated* Day 9

So On day 10, the first order of business was to cut and install new plywood sheathing over the new stud walls and insulation, and finish and re-wrap the original fascia returns.


And then move on to finishing the roof. First the fascia was made up of 2X8 cedar cleaned up with a light pass through the planer


Next I put up the 3" drip edge I had made up and then cut the steel at the valleys, and screwed it down, along with the original roofing I removed, and then added the ridge cap. Thats enough for another day





Day 11 it's back to the lower deck.

Ryan

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover, Day 10: Steel is up.

The laptop is fixed, and were beck in business OK, here's day 11, 12,13.

Day 11 was spent finishing up the lower deck and installing more Azek.


But then I got looking at that window.......


So I pulled the siding around it


Then decided to leave it alone and started with housewrap


Then I changed my mind again and commited



That was it for the day. I tacked up some housewrap over the hole for the night, called Lowe's and ordered something to fill it, and got stuff ready for day 12.

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover, Day 10: Steel is up.

Day 12: Time to cover up the 70's cedar shiplap.

First step was to make sure the wall surface was releatively flat, and use a power planer to take off any high spots from the cedar curling over the years, and then wrap the entire structure in housewrap.




Then it was on to the siding. For this I chose to use Gentek siding in D 4.5 size, the colour is "Pebble Khaki" (same as my shop)
I began by installing the corners, Starter strip and J-mold



And started installing the siding.


Then the truck showed up with "hole filler" for the bedroom wall. So I cut out the existing stud wall right down to the floor, added a double layer of roofing paper over the sill and a few lines of sealant



And filled the hole


Then it was back to siding for day 13

[Ryan Shervill [OP]]

Re: Ryan Shervill 's Complete housefront makeover, Day 10: Steel is up.

Day 13 stared with a visit from my friend, Jeff Argue. Jeff is one of the best landscape contactors in the business, and I am more than thrilled that he has agreed to help with the landscaping portion of this build. Jeff specializes in integrating both natural and man-made materials into a landscape, and he's also a horticulturalist, so he's going to do a planting plan for me as well. Here's a scan of the front of his card to give an idea of his "style". This should blend really well with the overall style of the reno.


Anyway, he got out his can of orange paint and we started marking out exactly what, where, and how the landscape was going to be done



With a plan laid out we called Atlas Block and ordered up the materials...they should be here in a day or two.


So back to siding.....

Pretty much a carbon copy of the day before....super exciting....kind of like watching paint dry, but it sure looks better than than the old shiplap.







Aaaaand that's it. Caught up for now.

Over the next couple of days I'll be finishing up the detail work, trimming out the french doors and burying some PVC to get ready for eavestrough. The landscaping should be underway midweek, and and I have a VERY interesting shipment coming from Lowes on Tues.....stay tuned

Thanks for looking,
Ryan